Dipa Basu is and Associate Professor of Sociology and Black Studies at Pitzer College, Claremont, California. Her recent publications include 'Sociology of the Color Line' in Peter Ratcliffe, ed. The Politics of Social Science Research: Race, Ethnicity and Social Change (Palgrave Press, 2001). Sidney Lemelle is an Associate Professor of Black Studies at Pomona College, Claremont, California. He has co-edited with Robin D.G Kelley, Imagining Home: Class, Culture and Nationalism in the African Diaspora (Verso, 1994).